Resident Evil 4 Remake Release Time: When Will the Game be Playable?

The Resident Evil 4 remake is nearly here, though don’t be surprised if you’ve been struggling to find its exact release time. For some reason, Capcom has been unusually shy about sharing that information. It turns out that the game’s release time depends on your platform and region.

For instance, Resident Evil 4 Remake will be released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 at midnight on March 24th. That means it will release at midnight for whatever time zone you’re currently in, so some will get to play the game before others. While it’s technically possible to change your local timezone on PlayStation consoles, the process is somewhat convoluted. Many will find it easier just to wait the extra few hours.

However, while the Xbox version of Resident Evil 4 Remake is also scheduled to be released at midnight on March 24th in your local time zone, Xbox gamers can easily change their console’s time zone. That means that the classic New Zealand trick will allow Xbox gamers to play Resident Evil 4 Remake several hours before they are supposed to.

PC gamers are in roughly the same boat as PlayStation fans. The Steam version of Resident Evil 4 Remake is also scheduled to be released at midnight on March 24th in your local time zone, and there isn’t a great way to use the New Zealand trick (or similar methods) to beat the clock on that platform. There are some methods out there that people have had success with in the past, but many of them involve outdated VPN tricks.

You should be able to preload Resident Evil 4 on all consoles as of the time of this writing, but there’s been no confirmation regarding Steam’s pre-load status. Recent Resident Evil releases couldn’t be pre-loaded on Steam (at least not until the final hours), and there’s been no confirmation if that will be the case this time around as well. You’ll want to keep an eye on that as we draw closer to release. At the moment, though, it’s looking like PC gamers will need to wait until release.

That’s a shame considering that Resident Evil 4 Remake is much larger than the previous Resident Evil remakes. The PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game clock in at around 60-67 GB, so you can expect the PC version of the game to be about the same size.

While we’ll have much more to say about Resident Evil 4 in the coming days, you can rest assured that the wait has been worth it. Capcom set a pretty high bar with the Resident Evil 2 Remake, but they arguably raised it with this incredible update of an already all-time great game. While it’s certainly not the most complete remake of a game that we’ve seen in recent years (much of the game is as it was before), it’s a real treat for Resident Evil 4 fans as well as anyone who has somehow not had the chance to play this revolutionary game.